Kenyan Pundit

Couldn’t blog Ethan’s great opening talk, because I was finalizing my presentation, but will link to the slides shortly. You can also get updates and get pictures at the conference blog – http://dci.ru.ac.blog

The first panel was the South African editor’s forum panel, featuring Chris Roper and Bryan Porter (www.24.com – I use this website a lot in SA); Juanita Williams (www.iol.co.za – my primary resource for SA news online); and Ray Hartley (Sunday Times, the one paper subscription that I have in SA).

1. Chris Roper
- Thinks blogs are important because they train to read (not write), get exposure to different kinds of stories.
- Blogging is not a threat to journalism, the only threat to journalism is journalism itself. This whole question about a code of conduct is meaningless to him. Most people mean a threat to journalism as a marketplace or their jobs but not to journalism per se e.g. how can a blog compete with the authority of the NYTimes - it can’t but it can provide a medium for questioning the authority of the NYTimes.
- As a media company, can’t have a free-for-all blog. One of the conundrums they face community produced content requires freedom, but as a brand they have to protect their own interests.
- You can’t define what a blog is, only what it is not – it is not definable.

2. Bryan Porter
- Question traditional media should be posing is not what threats to blogs post, rather what opportunities can blogs present.
- Traditionally media has spoken at it’s audience, blogging allows for feedback.
- One experiment – promoting survivor – they found a blogger who was blogging about Survivor SA and asked him whether he’d want to be the featured blog on Survivor. After the first show he already had 13,000 hits.
- Last year news 24 ran the South African Blog off. Got 300 entries in a 2 week run, they had expected 30 to 40 entries (imagine the Nation collaborating with KBW to run the Kaybees!).
- Braaispace – more of social networking space like myspace.
- Next step getting into multi-media content e.g. audience-generated videos.

3. Ray Hartley (Sunday Times)
- Important to understand that we are the very beginning of a process.
- Traditional media grappling with what gets attention vs. what is important.

4. Juanita Williams
- Her blog is Inside IOL.
- She is a journalist and struggles with the issue of whether to be objective or not on her blog given her journalism background.

5. Q&A
- In Nigeria blogging can be a threat because it can avoid editorial censorship. In Nigeria, most stories don’t make the press because of ties that some of the editors have with politicians or big corporations.
- Why should south Africans use media24.com rather than blogger or wordpress? You can get more local attention rather than being lost in the internet.

AOB: Perks of attending conferences in Africa - you get to see Yvonne Chaka Chaka and Malaika perform.

Rule Number 1 of hosting a blogging conference = make sure that the conference room has internet connectivity (those of you who I expect to put your money where you mouth is and start planning the African blogging conference that you want to see (polemics does nothing for Africa ) - take note).

The conference facilities for highway africa had connectivity, but the room where the DCI blogging conference is taking place doesn’t. Most speakers at blogging conferences rely on having internet connectivity to pull up web pages/links when doing presentations (I generally avoid power-point and prefer to do this instead), not to mention the speakers/bloggers in the audience who want to live blog the conference. Needless to say we are unamused.

Global Voices Online (www.GlobalVoicesOnline.org), an international bloggers’ network, is looking for an experienced blogger to take on the role of Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Editor which involves coverage of the vast diversity of countries and cultures across the region.

This is a part-time position with modest compensation, for somebody who is passionate about helping to amplify the voices of bloggers from across Africa and bringing the world’s attention to the region’s citizens’ voices. It is also a great opportunity to become involved with a global community of bloggers who are working on the cutting edge of citizens’ media.

The role involves selecting and posting between five and ten short “global links” entries to the Global Voices weblog each weekday. The posts should reflect the most interesting, significant or engaging blog posts from across the African region.

In addition the Regional Editor should recruit, encourage and oversee volunteer bloggers around the region who write the regular longer “weblog” posts about particular countries, sub-regions or topics, building on the existing dedicated team of volunteers.

You can see the most recent entries for the region here: http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/-/world/sub-saharan-africa/. The longer weblog posts are to the left, the shorter global links posts are in the middle column.

It is also the Regional Editor’s responsibility to seek out, collect, and make available for public consultation in the Global Voices blog aggregator, a list of “bridge blogs” for the region.

The role requires liaising closely with the relevant language editors who monitor blogs in the region (currently French, Portuguese, Arabic and Spanish) as well as working closely with the whole editorial team in determining the current and future direction of Global Voices.

There is an editorial meeting every two weeks via IRC for all regional editors and language editors. The hours are otherwise completely flexible. The job is paid on a part-time basis.

Requirements include:
- Demonstrated ability to cover blogs from Africa in a fair and thorough manner with sensitivity and respect for cultural differences and divergent points of view;
- Familiarity with one or more of the widely-spoken and blogged-in African languages a definite plus;
- Information research and writing skills;
- Participation in blogging either as an individual or team member and familiarity with blogging and other digital media tools;
- Team player who works well with others, who would be able to help recruit and manage volunteer blogger-contributors from around the region;
- A person who was born in the region or with strong family roots in Africa is preferred.

If you are interested in the position please send an e-mail to Rachel Rawlins at editor@globalvoicesonline.org giving an outline of why you’d be the right person for the job including relevant experience, qualifications and the url of your blog.

Closing date for applications - Friday 14 July.

AOB: Afrofeminizta’s report on her day in Parliament.

About this time last year, Live 8 was dominating the Kenyan and African blogosphere. One theme that emerged from the discussion was that while ranting and raving and making ourselves be heard was all well and good, it (blogoactivism?) doesn’t do much to address the realities and challenges of the continent.

Over the last few weeks, I think I’m beginning to see a pattern emerge as far as Afro-bloggers taking their ideas to the next level and it’s making me very happy. Tangent: It’s not an easy thing to do…I can’t even begin to tell you how many people have told me that Mzalendo will be a non-starter because Kenyans don’t care about what their politicians are up to…our philosophy, if we build it they will come. Tangent Over.

From Cheeseforge and Zangu News, to the budding idea of Sanaa. From recently launched Afrigadget and African Women Blogs aggregator to Kenyamoto. And from the tireless Africa and entrepreneurship promoter, Emeka (with others) DeniAfrica.

Keep up the good work and keep asking why not!

- Hash get’s his manifesto published (Yeah!).

- For those people who are thinking about doing projects in Africa and Kenya in particular, please read this report by MIT students who were recently working on several projects. Why? First, it shows that you can have your cake AND eat it (M’s post notwithstanding). Being overseas is not necessarily mutually exclusive with trying to make a difference at home in a non-remittance manner. Second, helping is not that easy…some of the challenges that the students faced are a classic case of us shooting ourselves in the foot as Kenyans et. al., from administrators who act like they are doing you a favor to ten thousand procedures before you can get anything done.

- Zookada an email tool for bloggers just launched, looks really neat and is especially useful for bloggers whose readers don’t have regular net access.

- Why I hate drug companies.

- Who says there’s no money in Kenya? Wonder what it would take to spur similar interest in V-C type funding.

- For the geeks: Share your OPML (share outlines, feeds, taxonomy) and Valleyschwag (just click on the link dammit).

- Now why didn’t this ever occur to me when I was searching for a paper topic in law school?